Would heroes choose.”

Lay of Fafnir (Thorpe’s tr.).

This adventure was the very thing for Sigurd, and he set off at once. The way lay through trackless regions, and the journey was long and cheerless, but at length he came to the Hindarfiall in Frankland, a tall mountain whose cloud-wreathed summit seemed circled by fiery flames.

“Long Sigurd rideth the waste, when, lo, on a morning of day,

From out of the tangled crag-walls, amidst the cloudland grey,

Comes up a mighty mountain, and it is as though there burns

A torch amidst of its cloud-wreath; so thither Sigurd turns,

For he deems indeed from its topmost to look on the best of the earth;

And Greyfell neigheth beneath him, and his heart is full of mirth.”